The Egyptian Goose
CARRY AKROYD
by john mcewen illustrated by carry akroyd A partridge in a pear tree is nothing compared with the sight of an Egyptian goose (Alopochen aegyptiaca). The species is pictured in the tombs of the pharaohs – and perched 40 feet up on the branch of one of St James’s Park’s 200-year-old plane trees. It prefers to nest in holes found in old trees. The only other goose I have seen tree nesting – in the hollows of ten-foothigh pollarded oaks alongside a lake – was at Jonathan Minter’s prize-winning sporting estate in Constable country. Egyptian geese will also perch on buildings. In St James’s, a pair can often be seen standing sentinel on top of the Guards Memorial facing Horse Guards Parade, before flying off to land on the 20-foot-thick concrete roof of the nearby Admiralty Citadel or to explore its terrace, still lawned to camouflage it from air attack. They are belligerent birds, prone to aerial fights. The husky voice, when a bird is agitated, can sound like an old banger being cranked into action. It is appropriate to associate them with St James’s Park because this was their first British home. They were brought there to adorn Charles II’s ‘decorative duck’ lake, the first in these islands. Their brown appearance, distinguished by two ‘black eyes’, is turned exotic by usually invisible, white wing shoulders, as surprising as the white pinions of the black swan. The Alopochen (fox-goose) in its name refers to its rufous back. It is the last extant member of the Alopochen genus, and related to the goose-like shelduck (genus Tadorna) and placed with them in the subfamily Tadorninae. Shelducks are (ground) hole nesters and both birds have a culmen or ridge at the base of the bill, albeit barely noticeable in the goose’s case. The 18th-century age of elegance saw Egyptian geese adorn landscaped parks, most notably in Norfolk and famously at Holkham Hall. Dr Bill Sutherland has
suggested that Capability Brown parkland subconsciously imitates the savanna – scattered trees, pasture and lakes – of Homo sapiens’s earliest African ancestors. So it is little wonder that the African Egyptian goose, which makes up the majority of the early British population imported from southern Africa, feels at home. The primordial debt to our African ancestors may equally explain the innate origins of hunting, shooting, fishing or their urban equivalent, shopping. It has been recorded nesting in the
wild for over 200 years, as far apart as Devon and East Lothian. But its parkland reputation delayed its admission to the official list of British birds until 1971. Today, East Anglia and Greater London are the strongholds of a burgeoning population of 6,000. Breeding can be as early as February: the briefly dappled, black-and-beige goslings are among the first to appear in spring. It means they risk dying from cold; or from toxins in their infantile aquatic diet. As insurance, they grow sturdy in days rather than weeks. The Oldie April 2022 77
